Penn Professor Prevents Research Paper Plagiarism

Fraudulent research papers are an ever-present thorn in the side of the scientific community, but a new algorithm may prevent them from happening.

A collaboration between University of Pennsylvania professor Konrad Kording, Syracuse professor Daniel Acuna, and University of Rochester’s Paul Brookes, the algorithm compares images in various journals to prevent their misuse. The algorithm can also sense when an image has been manipulated in other ways, such as cropping or rotating.

In a post on Medium, Dr. Acuna said, “Science depends on building upon other people’s work…If you cannot trust other people’s work, the scientific process collapses and, worse, the general public loses trust in us.”

Dr. Kording has stated that there is a possibility of licensing the algorithm to academic journals to continue the fight against image plagiarism in scientific papers.

However, the accuracy of the algorithm is still being scrutinized due to incidental accounts of image misuse.

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Roxanneh Mousavi is a Seattle-raised broadcast Journalism and Spanish student living in Orange County. She attends Chapman University and will graduate this spring. Roxanneh has always been passionate about storytelling and is very excited to be a contributor for College Media Network. When she isn’t chasing stories, Roxanneh enjoys singing with her a cappella group, watching horror films, and cuddling animals.